Planescape modules - which are any good?

[Shemeska]

I hear that's not officially Planescape anyway.

*makes the Elder Sign*

Speak not its name, lest it gain power from the invocation.

 

[Mikaze]

I didn't even know The Vecna, The touched on Planescape until 3E rolled around. One bullet dodged, I suppose.

I've got a soft spot for Harbinger House, and one of the aftermath possibilities wound up permanently in my homebrew. I wish I had been able to run Hellbound and the Modron March. Heck, just part of the March would have been fine.

 

[Orius]

The only two Planescape modules I have are Something Wild and Hellbound. Never ran them, so I can't really comment. I also have the For Duty and Deity .pdf around somewhere. I guess they're both okay, haven't taken a look at Wild in quite a while, but I don't remember it being lame. Hellbound is pretty good, but if you think the Blood War was always lame, you won't like it. Some people hate the end result of Squaring the Circle, but it did give the PCs the chance to affect the setting in a big way. I was never a big module buyer, only have a handful of 2e modules, and never bought any 3e ones.

I shelled out three figures for an unopened Hellbound set (though that's a story that involved me getting into an unknowing bidding war on Ebay with one of my players who didn't know my ebay name and was bidding on what he wanted to give me for a birthday present).

Ouch. If Hellbound is that popular, I'm glad I bought it when it was new.

(and if they do, please put out a professional quality scan of 'On Hallowed Ground' because there was never an officially made pdf of that one, just pirate copies of varying quality).

Hmm, I have On Hallowed Ground, and it's probably my least favorite PS product. I think it's because I was expecting it to be a PS-themed update of Legends and Lore and I was very dissappointed with it, because it's almost 100% fluff. Some of it's ok cause it gives a lot of background on planar cosmology and who the gods interact, but I don't think I've ever made much real use out of it.

 

[Henrix]

I shelled out three figures for an unopened Hellbound set

Yeah, I managed to get it 'cheap', I don't know how, really. I think it was one of the lowest prices in a long time, and it still was U$50.

I got lucky on the Planes of Conflict, in that I found one without a box (still almost pristine books) for very little.

 

[wingsandsword]

Hmm, I have On Hallowed Ground, and it's probably my least favorite PS product. I think it's because I was expecting it to be a PS-themed update of Legends and Lore and I was very dissappointed with it, because it's almost 100% fluff. Some of it's ok cause it gives a lot of background on planar cosmology and who the gods interact, but I don't think I've ever made much real use out of it.

Oddly enough, the same reasons you don't like it are the reasons that other people like it.

It's very fluff heavy with almost no crunch, which makes it pretty edition-independent, and while some D&D deity books are swimming in stats for gods and avatars (3e Deities and Demigods being the worst offender, but most books doing this to some degree) in all my years of DMing and playing I've never seen those stats actually get hauled out onto the gaming table and used.

Planescape materials generally were of the mindset that in direct combat mortal vs. deity = mortal automatically loses and no stats are needed. Now a Epic level PCs armed with greater artifacts and extremely well prepared vs. a demigod could be theoretically possible and might make for a good campaign-ending final battle, but for stats you'd only need once in a campaign (and even then, probably not that often) and could (and probably should) be customized for the campaign there is no need to fill precious sourcebook space with it.

On Hallowed Ground is so cool (IMO) because it's a huge honking book of pretty much pure fluff about loads of deities and pantheons, and it had that gigantic index in the back of every deity from every D&D world sorted by portfolio and alignment.

 

[Orius]

That's not quite my angle. I'm okay with the fact that the book doesn't have Thor's AC and hp; I had no problem with the 2e approach that the gods should be above and beyond what the players could fight except under VERY unusual circumstances.

My problem was that I wanted the spheres for the various mythological gods because by the time I got into D&D and Planescape, Legends and Lore was out of print. I was hoping the book would have that information but it didn't. Well, it's not an issue anymore, since I can just go here and get an .rtf of the text. So yeah, it's still entertaining reading, but there's a practical side of me that doesn't like spending money on game products I'm not getting much use out of in my games.

 

[Thanael]

I'd reccomend For Duty and Diety, a FR adventure that takes place in the planes and is designed for Planescape characters, too.

This one is even available for free as a pdf at WotC' Previous Edition Dungeons & Dragons Downloads.

Edit: O well, shoulda read the thread first.

 

[Ruined]

I agree with most of the posts here in regards to Dead Gods and other mods. I love Eternal Boundary - hands down my favorite. I don't enjoy Infinite Staircase and Modron March as much, but their beauty is that they're compilations, so you can pick and choose which ones to use. Well of Worlds was the same way.

I wanted to chime in about the Planar Setting boxes (Planes of Chaos, Planes of Law, Planes of Conflict). Each one had a number of smaller vignette modules that had lots of flavor and potential. Those are great ways to display the flavor of various exotic locales. Arsenic, the low-level adventure for the Abyss, is a personal favorite.

 

[Piratecat]

I hope Modron March is good. I just found and bought a copy at half price books today.

One big caution about the Great Modron March: it's slightly schizophrenic in that it expects the PCs to follow the modrons around and help them, and yet the first adventure paints them as uncaring jerks who trample everything in their path. My players had no interest in helping them after that, any more than they wanted to help a flood or a forest fire. You may want to consider making them more sympathetic in order to get total buy-in.

I loved Dead Gods, of course, and (with some of the really railroady elements removed) loved Harbinger House as well.

 

[Piratecat]